There has been some new studies about cholesterol and is now being considered that it is not this big baddy that we were all once told it was. Recent studies in the Harvard Health Publications and the American Heart Association have been researching the way dietary cholesterol limitations and found that having limitations on our cholesterol intake is not as important as it was once portrayed. In fact, it is even stated that:

A summary of the committee’s December 2014 meeting says “Cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption.” Translation: You don’t need to worry about cholesterol in your food.

— www.health.harvard.edu

Hopefully the news could give even more credibility on some of the things Dr. Wallach has been preaching the last few years.

Check out the articles below. It's an interesting read and could very well change the way we all think about cholesterol.

We apologize for not having much recent content lately as this year has been a very crazy and has taken our slogan of "It's never too late to have a new beginning" to a new level. Even though 2015 isn't over yet, it has given us many reasons to be alive and well.

Meeko and Cotton have no idea what's coming their way but they are excited even though they don't really show it in this picture.

As you can see that the last update was at late March 2015. The reason we have not been posting anything since then is that both Leslie and I have been very busy prepping for a new addition to our lives. If you didn't guess it by now, Leslie is pregnant! At this point, we are about 4 weeks away until the actual due date. However we were told that there is a possibility that she could come anytime now. For those who do not know, Leslie sought out Youngevity as one of the main concerns the doctors told her was she could have difficulties conceiving. Well we are glad to say that we proved those doctors wrong! As of today, we are on track to delivering a healthy baby girl. We can't wait to introduce her to the world and start this new journey as parents for the first time. There will be lots of challenges ahead of us, but like every other challenge out there we are very excited to face them head on.

For those who are curious about my health updates, I'm proud to say that I have been an active gym member since January of 2015. This year marks the most active consecutive weeks I have been since my high school years. I have had my membership to 24 Hour Fitness for over 8 years now but I have never gone for more than 6 months without dropping out. There have been even years where I never set foot in the gym or picked up a weight.

My photo from work. I was told to wear this ribbon for the day as my coworkers gave me a baby shower. I appreciate them very much for this and am more grateful than they will ever know.

Even though my weight has been fluctuating throughout the year, unfortunately I can't really say I have "lost" a significant amount. However, I have been told by my friends and family that they can see a significant difference in the efforts I have been putting in the gym. On that positive note, I have gone down about 3-4 inches in my waist. I am now fitting a 38" waist in pants. I know to most of you, that is still fairly large. To put things in perspective, I haven't worn size 38" pants since my early years in high school or possibly before then. Not only that, my strength has vastly increased. I haven't seen myself push the kinds of weights I have been lifting in 20 years!

With all this great progress, I am overly excited and have found even more motivation to exercising. Once Leslie gave me the news earlier this year, I made a vow to her and myself that I will not be one of the parents who watch their kids grow up from the sidelines. I will be right there running alongside them as they grow from an innocent child to a young eager adult ready to face their own world.

We will try to update when we can but with the recent news, we can't promise how often that will come about. If you guys don't hear back from us we want to wish you all a Happy Holiday!

I've ever been fond of the phrase "No Excuses". I know many use that motivational term to inspire people to get off their butts, exercise or get active. Personally, it's a little condescending to just tell that to someone when they don't even understand their situation. Their "excuses" or reasons may be valid to them but to someone else it's just another reason to be lazy.

If someone tells me get fit, get healthy and "stop making excuses", it doesn't motivate me in any way. In fact, it only makes me feel like this person doesn't even understand what I go through each day. Do you think I like being unhealthy? If I could do it, I would but at this point in my life, I can't because of my personal circumstances. I'm sure there are people "making excuses" not to go to the gym, however there are many of us out there who lead a busy life. Those of us working multiple jobs, multiple kids, multiple bills, and multiple EVERYTHING. How can you just sum up their life situation and tell them "stop making excuses"?

Instead of force feeding people to get their act together and get healthier, we can be a little more understanding. I know a thing or two about being busy and yet I find a way to get myself in the gym and try to eat as healthy as possible. I don't drag anybody with me but I'd rather show them my progress in how I physically look via my weight loss. Forcing someone to change their life around by telling them they are just "making excuses" doesn't make them feel any better bout themselves. I'd rather empower them and help them in their journey to a healthier lifestyle. Show them, don't tell them.

Fitness Update: Week 5

This past Friday was the completion of the fifth week and the end of powerlifting program. I am very pleased with my numbers. I am especially impressed with how far I have come with a particular lift, the deadlift. The last time I was deadlifting was back in high school, just under twenty years ago. Judging by what I did yesterday, I'm very close to achieving my first goal of getting back to that youthful strength I once had. I'm pretty sure in my next training cycle, I might achieve this goal or even surpass it!

Unfortunately, the scale still does not agree with me. I know for a fact that I can be doing better with my diet, but I'm also certain some of the weight gain is due to an increase in muscle. Either way, everything is still on a positive outcome and I can't really ask for more then that.

We are going to the Youngevity Convention in Ontario this year. This will our first Youngevity convention. You can find us there on Saturday roaming the floor and taking in as much as we can. We hope to have some fun and learn a lot while we are there. Don't hesitate to come say hello if you see us there. Anyone else planning to go?

Keeping track of my nutrition on MyFitnessPal has been an eye opening experience. I am not a fan of tracking calories but at this point I think it's a necessity just so I can have some accountability and actually see my progress rather than eyeballing/guessing if I'm on the right track. I find that when I eat "good" foods, I actually see a dramatic weight loss.

When i mean dramatic, I mean 2-3 lbs in a matter of days. I'm sure that might be water retention from the "bad" foods I have been eating the previous days. I am also certain that will not be a constant drop at that rate as the days proceed. Unfortunately, I have the ability to gain the weight back at a faster rate the moment I have a cheat day/meal. Using the scale is an absolute nightmare for me when it comes to tracking my weight loss.

Lately I find myself developing a late night sweet craving that I never really had before. Fortunately I recognized that before it got worse. Keeping track of my macros does allow me to have some sweets sometimes but I don't like how I have a craving for it. I started to slowly cut down my sugar intake since I did notice that I'm going over my limit.

Another attribute to my slow weight loss is probably due to my muscle increasing. I know for a fact that I have increased my strength over the last 5 weeks. I constantly keep track of the amount of weights I use when I go to the gym to maintain that progressive overload that is needed for strength gain. I'm currently on my fifth week in the Candio Training Program and my friend and I have both seen dramatic increases in our strength. Although, I wish yesterday's performance at the bench press could have gone better, I'm still happy to see positive results.

When we went to Vegas some time ago, I decided to buy some shirts that better fit my current size. As of this morning, I feel that those shirts are starting to look a little lose on me as well. I guess that's a good thing that is happening. I just feel a little bad that the new shirts I just got might not be able to fit me in a month. Better the shirts get too big than too small though. I actually liked those shirts too. I recently tried one of my old shirts again and It seems to be fitting even better. The buttons are less stressed around the mid section and if all goes well I should be on track to be wearing that shirt in a month.

I'm also still keeping up with my Youngevity breakfast fruit smoothies. According to MyFitnessPal, I'm going way beyond my vitamin A, C and Calcium intake and that's probably due to the BTT and Osteo. Leslie has gotten a bit under the weather due to the exposure from sick kids at work. Fortunately I have not picked up anything from her and that's probably due to the increased vitamins I have been taking.

Overall I'm pretty happy about my results. As of this morning I'm down 13 lbs from the beginning of the year while having a significant increase in my bench, squat and deadlift. Even though my weight loss itself hasn't been where I want it to be, everything else seems to be going well.

I just joined MyFitnessPal.com to better track my calorie intake. I've never really been into tracking what I eat in the past. To better gauge my progress, I should give it a try again since a lot of my meals are fairly simple to track. They also have Youngevity products in their database which allowed me to calculated my morning BTT and Osteo fruit smoothies. If you want to add me, just look for user jammin_316.